Ants are persistent. Twenty years ago a house was built over what had been a farmyard. It was known that there were ants in the woodshed, and that they had been there for some time. The builders of the house were, in other words, moving in on ant territory. After a few relatively antless years, they came back. And kept coming back.
All sorts of remedies have been applied. The ants still are around, though perhaps less persistent. They form a very high quality civilisation, according to Bernard Werber, whose book on the creatures has been published in eighteen countries. It is said now to be out in London. The author has been studying them since he was a schoolboy. The writer of an interview with him in Figaro Magazine says Werber can talk to you for days about ants.
Theirs is not a society of domination, he says. It is a republic of ideas. The interviewer asks if this means that nothing is obligatory? Answer: There is no boss. Nothing is imposed. But isn't the queen the authority? Yes, but she has no political authority. Her only duty is to lay the eggs. And to convince the others that she is the best layer of eggs.
No police? Unnecessary. Gratuitous violence is unknown to ants. Do they never fight? Well, the author admitted, gravely in this lighthearted to and fro, he once saw an incident in a war he had deliberately started, in which the soldiers of one queen were trying to drown another queen by holding her head under water. Ask a silly question ...
Bernard Werber reminds us that ants have been on earth for a hundred million years and we for only three million. He contrasts the two worlds, ant and mankind. Man is using up the worlds resources and cannot control his birth rate. Ants control their numbers and can choose the sex of those produced. How do they communicate with each other? By smell. They transmit pheromones by their antennae. Read all about it.
No publisher's name given but it's probably just called Ants. Did you know that shooting types used to (still may) make ant colonies for game birds. To eat. Just wait for the July and August flights. Unearth the big ones the females and put them in a small hole in the soil where you want them. Soon there will be a colony for your pheasants or whatever.
As to the colony mentioned at the start, it is containable at the present, especially at their strong point in the kitchen, though one, just one, appeared in the sheets the other day.